Ep 113: The Art of Self Lovin'

Bekah Salazar and Marie McDonald are lifetime sister-friends. We are also all about becoming EXPERTS at loving ourselves so that we can give our best to the world...and even more importantly than that, because we deserve it. 

And so do you. 

We see the people around us giving everything to families and work and communities, and we want to help our people to slow down; say no to everyone else a little more, and say YES to ourselves.

Together, we created the Art of Self-Lovin’ and you’re going to hear all about it in this episode. This content is a sneak peak at an all-day in-person workshop and online course available through the Bloom Coach website. 

What you’ll learn in this episode: 

Self Lovin' on the inside: 

• Learn how to examine your automatic thoughts about yourself, where they come from, and the feeling states they generate in your body. 
• Hear examples of how to shift those thoughts into beliefs that create a more fulfilling life. 
• Learn two tools for generating lists of self love attributes and desires that are in line with your intuition and your body wisdom. 
• Understand how to honor the finite resource of your time and love by choosing to put your energy into people, communities and projects that reciprocate and fill your cup. 

Self Lovin' on the outside: 

• Hear a nod to the holy trio of self lovin’: water, sleep and movement. 
• Understand how style as a form of self expression is a great way to practice self lovin’. 
• Be introduced to skin care rituals as a form of meditation, completing the stress cycle, and daily self lovin’ on the largest organ in the body. 
• How dietary choices that support gut health and protecting the microbiome protect our overall health. 

Self Lovin’ is an art. 

Let’s get really good at practicing it.

Mentioned in this episode: 

• EP 18: The Tool That Changed Everything 
• EP 24: Nostalgia for Now 
• Bekah Salazar on Instagram 
• Wear it Well by Allison Bornstein

How to connect with Marie:

• On the Web | The Local Bloom
• Instagram: @the.bloom.coach
• All Things Marie on LinkTree

JOIN THE BLOOM ROOM!
We'll take all these ideas and apply them to our lives. Follow me on Instagram at @the.bloom.coach to learn more and snag a spot in my group coaching program!

Transcript

00:08 - Speaker 1
Welcome to the Bloom your Mind Podcast, where we take all of your ideas for what you want and we turn them into real things. I'm your host, certified coach, Marie McDonald. Let's get into it. 

Well, hello, my lovely friends, and welcome to episode number 113 of the Bloom your Mind podcast. Today is all about the art of self-loving. You heard me right self-loving, self-lovin'. You heard me right, self-lovin'. Valentine's Day is coming up in just a week from now, and I'm getting ahead of it, y'all, by giving you some tips for how to be your own Valentine this year. And I'm really excited about this whole concept because I've been collaborating to create some amazing content with a good friend and an expert of mine on the art of self-loving in two parts self-loving on the inside and self-loving on the outside. So today I'm going to review the main concepts from this content about how to be incredible to yourself through your internal self-love and your external self-love. And then my content creation collaborator and I are actually running a one-day retreat or one-day workshop in a beautiful setting here around San Diego towards the end of the month. That I will be releasing details for in the next couple of days, so I'll tell you more about that at the end of the episode. Hang tight until then if you want to hear about it. 

01:47
So, the art of self-loving. Why is it so important? Well, my friend Becca Salazar and I she and I have been sister friends for years and years and years. Funny story actually the way that I met her is I bought our first house. The way that I met her is I bought our first house, my husband and I, in San Diego, and it's a three-on-one property. So there's two rentals in the back of our property and then a house that we've renovated a couple of times in the front. And it just so happens that the neighbor that lived next to me when we first moved in here used to live inside our very house, live next to me when we first moved in here, used to live inside our very house. So we started to get to know them and our houses were so close together that I would be leaving out of my driveway and Becca would be showering in her bathroom and like the steam would be coming out and she'd say bye, I love you. And I'd say bye I love you as I pulled my car out of the driveway, and it just reminds me of home improvement. 

02:47
You know that show with Wilson. Did anybody ever see that he would put his face? It was the neighbor he would put his face over the fence and talk to whoever. The main character of that show was Tim, the tool man, taylor, but you never got to see his whole face. So Becca always reminded me of that and we would leave dinner for each other on each other's doorsteps. She took care of my son when I went back to work. 

03:10
We have just been dear, dear sister friends. We got closer and closer and now she is one of my very best friends and she and I are more than lifetime sister friends. We are also sort of collaborative teachers and learners. So I learn a lot from her and she learns a lot from me in our respective areas of expertise and she and I are all about becoming experts at loving ourselves so that we can give our best to the world. But even more than that, because we deserve it and so do you. 

03:38
So we see specifically the women around us, but many around us. But we see the women around us giving everything to families and work and communities and we really have this goal of helping our sisters slow down, start saying no to everyone else a little bit or a lot more, and start saying yes to ourselves a lot more. So I'm going to share a little bit about the content that we came up with to support women in doing this, first by practicing self-love and on the inside, and then, secondly, through ways that we can love our physical body and ourselves in some unique ways, and then, at the end, I'll tell you a little bit about it. How can we practice more self-love in this Valentine's Day, this season of love, this February, and always on the inside? Well, the very first of the three main things that I have for you today how to love yourself and practice more self-love on the inside, no matter who you are and I know I said that Becca and I are focused on women, but I want to say this is for everybody who you are and I know I said that Becca and I are focused on women, but I want to say this is for everybody is to really look at the thoughts that we have about ourselves, because our thoughts are running through our mind non-freaking-stop y'all, and you know what I'm talking about. 

05:01
It's like a radio that is constantly on right and the trick is that our brain and our system can't really tell the difference between a thought and a fact. So, whatever thoughts are rolling through our beautiful brains, our whole body, the rest of our system, our cognitive system and our physical system is treating that as reality. A lot of those thoughts that a lot of us have about ourselves are not kind ones, and so the first thing that I encourage everybody to do in the art of self-loving is to stop and look at these thoughts that you are letting run through your brain about yourself, without giving that stamp of approval to we know that we have all kinds of systems that go to work, proving our thoughts true. We do it through our body language. We do it through our cognitive bias. Through our action, we gather evidence for these thoughts. Whatever thoughts are in our brain, everything in our system supports those thoughts. So let's take a minute and look at them and decide whether we want them to be there. So take a sheet of paper and write down all the thoughts that you have about yourself. Do it in a column, if you will, and then, right next to that column, when you're all done, add another column and a last column. In the first column, write down how you feel when you think that thought about yourself. It could be a thought, it could be a belief, it could be something you just know is true, even though it's not factual. Okay, how do you feel when you think it? And then when you're done with that? In that last column, for each one of those thoughts I want you to answer, the question says who? Where'd that come from? 

06:54
I have a couple of examples for you. I was recently in Taos with my children and my husband and we had been skiing during the day. We love New Mexico. I talked about it on the last podcast and there we were all in a hot tub at the end of the day and I said to my eight and my 12 year old you know what I used to do with your uncles. The three of us would be somewhere super snowy and we would be in a hot tub and we would get out of the hot tub and we would roll in the snow until our bodies were like stinging with the cold. And then we would get back in the hot tub. We would be shrieking and screaming and cracking up and then our bodies felt like pins and needles were like poking them right. It was all this like stabby, sparky feeling all over our skin and we would crack up. And then we'd do it again and again. 

07:45
And you know what my kids did I know they're my kids because they did this. They looked at me and they said, yeah, prove it. And they get this mischievous grins on their faces and my husband and I look at each other and we started to say we don't you guys do it, you do it, you too. We don't have to do it, you do it, you two. We don't have to do it because we're grown-ups. And I thought, says who? Why do I think that I shouldn't get out of this hot tub and roll in the snow right now? So where's the belief in me that kids are the ones to do that and not adults? And so all of a sudden my husband and I looked at each other and we like nodded and we're like, we're doing this. And the whole family, the whole four of us, were shrieking for the next like 45 minutes, getting out of the hot tub and rolling in the snow and getting back in the hot tub with the pins and needles and cracking up and daring each other. You know it was amazing. 

08:47
But it also tracks to other things, other sort of generational trauma that I've really addressed in my kids and myself that I've just tried not to carry on from past cultures that I've been a part of or social groups I've been a part of. Another one of these thoughts is that in my family our kids are allowed to talk about anything that bothers them. But that really came from me saying says who that kids can't talk about this stuff? I asked myself that a long time ago and I realized my own value system and my own belief is that kids can ask me any question they want and I will tell them the truth. And I got to trust them to not talk about these things in places where they're not appropriate. But I will answer any of their questions truthfully and age appropriately, but I'm pretty liberal with that stuff. 

09:39
I also tell them if any adult is acting in a way that makes you uncomfortable, you call it out. You deserve as much respect as anybody else and the fact that your body is smaller right now as you're growing does not make you less deserving of respect. And what that means tactically is that if an adult is drinking alcohol and they feel like it's too much alcohol, they can say, hey, that makes me uncomfortable, or what are you doing If an adult is talking with a voice that is too loud for them? They can say, hey, that makes me uncomfortable. Or what are you doing If an adult is talking with a voice that is too loud for them? They can say I am leaving the room until you'll talk to me in a respectful tone. My kids will straight up do that. They will not allow adults to talk to them in a disrespectful tone. We have an agreement that you have to listen to what people are saying. So if the adult takes that request and changes their tone, then every you know everybody has to listen. But that's you know. It's something that, like, I changed on my own because I don't believe that adults need to be a certain way. Another one is I wrote down the belief. I had to do a lot of work on this Y'all. 

10:46
I was told many times that I was not an attractive person. Growing up in many different ways, there was lots of body shaming that happened in my life and lots of all kinds of shaming around me not being beautiful. And then, all of a sudden, I decided at some point in my adult life that I was just going to start gaslighting the shit out of me out of my own self telling myself I was beautiful, that I was just going to start gaslighting the shit out of me, out of my own self telling myself I was beautiful, that I was just going to like, completely tell myself I was absolutely, undeniably, irresistibly beautiful all the time. And that impacts exactly zero people in a negative way and it impacts myself, my children, my husband and, honestly, everyone around us in a positive way. So it says who? Well, a lot of people told me that growing up, but how do I feel horrible when I believe that thought and so I changed it years ago and I, you know, still have to work at it sometimes, but mostly it's mostly gone. 

11:47
And the change that I made there in telling myself I am just an irresistibly beautiful human, impacts my self-concept. How I walk around the world, how I listen to other people in a way that is not distracted by thinking that I don't, you know, by my own appearance or whatever. I'm super present in my life, my sex life. I'm super present in my life, my sex life, my focus on my work, my ability to dress myself in a way that I like and, yeah, just a lack of shame as I walk around the world. So I invite you to look at the thoughts that you have about yourself. Notice how you feel when you think them. Ask yourself, wait, where'd that come from? Says who, and then you know, change the ones that aren't serving you. And I also just invite you directly to gaslight yourself into thinking that you are irresistibly beautiful too. 

12:34
Now, the second thing in practicing the art of self-loving is to practice two things that will help you to replace some of those thoughts. One of them is by creating a list of all of the things that you love about yourself. Now, these could be traits, they could be physical traits, they could be personality traits, it could be really be anything. But make that list. For some people it's easy, for some people it's really really hard, and if it's really really hard for you, have somebody make it with you. But it is a simple, simple thing to do, and I have seen that as one of a very, very powerful practice for each client that I have ever done it with. Sitting with someone else and making a list out loud of all of the things that you love about yourself is incredible, and you can do it on your own if you like, but I highly recommend doing it with somebody else. And then the second thing is to make a list. Be ridiculous at first and make a list of what you want. What do you want If everything was on the table and you could? It's just anything you want to experience in life. How you want to be, what are the things that you want? 

14:00
Age has a funny way of helping us stop to ask that question of ourselves in the moment to moment and also in our big decisions. My mom said to me the other day you know, marie, you are one of the two people that I know who are the most like this. You just live so joyfully in the day-to-day of life. You are just such a joyful human being. You do that with your family. You just are very joyful. And I said you know, thanks. That was a beautiful thing for my mom to say to me. And then I thought about it. And you know that joyfulness, that joy is something that comes from three specific practices, because long ago I fought with depression that was related to trauma and I had years and years of unwinding those old things that happened to me before I was 25. Lots of things happened to me before I was 25. And I experienced lots of depression, debilitating depression. Back then I did a lot of work on myself and I learned these three things that create incredible joy for me. 

15:09
One is knowing that my thoughts are optional, which takes you back to that first practice of looking at what your thoughts are about yourself. So that's the first one, and if you want more about that, you can listen to episode 18 of the bloom your mind podcast. The second one is practicing presence, or what I call nostalgia for now. That is also an episode on the bloom your mind podcast and it is episode number 24. And the third thing is always knowing my truth and setting boundaries, saying hell yes and hell no to the things that are aligned or not aligned with my truth. That's it, three things Knowing my thoughts are optional, practicing nostalgia for now, and always knowing and honoring my truth, what is authentic for me, and being in integrity with that. But I want to focus on number three. I gave you podcast resources for one and two. 

16:17
If you can't tell sometimes what your truth is, what is a hell yes or a hell no for you, here's a simple practice to do Think of the thing that you're about to say yes or no, to Give it a yes, and then drop down into your body and feel your body's response. What does your body have to say about that yes, and then do it again and say no to the thing. And then drop down into your body, turn the volume down on your thinking mind and drop down into your body. What is your body's response to that? No, it will always have the truth. It will always have your answer. It is just a matter of getting better and better at hearing what your body is telling you. Your body will always tell you the truth. Your brain will sometimes gaslight you very often and will mislead you and sometimes lie, but your body will not. 

17:24
Now, if it's a no, whatever the thing is that you have to do. Maybe it's chores, maybe it's errands, maybe it's grocery shopping. I recently had a client saying it's grocery shopping in stores, where she has to use Google Translate in countries to do her shopping because it takes so long and is so hard. If it is something that you have to do anyways, how can you just reduce it by 10%? I've had this really work wonders with a lot of people Reading the news 10% less, go for 50 on that one, okay. 

18:03
If it's chores, though, it's amazing what happens when you just try to do 10% less of those chores. How I mean? They're all different ways. You can delegate, you can let it be messy, you can clean as you go. What about those errands? You can get really creative about needing less. My friends, delegating again, doing things in different ways. We can come up with all different creative solutions for how you can do things 10% less. So that is my second way that you can love yourself and practice self love and on the inside is to list off all the things that you love about yourself and list off the things that you want so that you can hear them really authentically, know your yeses and your nos and live joyfully in that. 

18:54
And the third thing so again I'm going to review the first one was really look at the thoughts that you have about yourself. The second one is list all the things you love and you want. And the third thing is really focus your energy in regenerative cycles. What are you putting energy into? If you picture like the three triangles in a recycling circle or a regenerative farming circle, think about anything in your life like that, the energy is a very finite. Amount of energy is coming out of you and into the things that you put energy into. So, for each one of those, think of them separately and think okay, in that relationship, I'm putting all my energy, into that relationship. The person is experiencing all my energy, and then the question to ask yourself is are you getting that energy back in a way that you value? Practice this reflection with people, communities, jobs, projects. Is the energy that you're putting into it that then is being received by the world or a person in some way? Is that energy coming back to you? And, if not, it's time to make some changes, because we are finite individuals and we can love ourselves by protecting the resource of our time and our energy and by only giving our precious moments of this life, of our time, to things that deserve it, because they reciprocate. So that's how you can practice self-loving in those three ways. 

20:45
On this Valentine's Day. On the inside, becca Salazar is going to share some really incredible tips. Although she's not here on the podcast today, I'm going to share a preview of her three fabulous ways that we can practice self-loving on the outside. Now, before I get into her three areas of expertise that she's going to teach us about, I want to first say that water, sleep and exercise are the basics. Move your body, get some sleep, consistently deep sleep, good sleep, and drink a lot of water. Those are the basics. 

21:19
Okay, now the other three that Becca and I are going to focus on is number one style. How can we dress ourselves in a way that feels amazing? The thing that I like to do for myself is to come up with three words at the beginning of the year, or the beginning of every five years, if I haven't had the urge to redo it and come up with three words to describe my style. I got this from a friend who gifted me a book, and I will put the book in the show notes because I don't remember exactly what it was called. But this is a suggestion these three words, and although I know a lot of practitioners use it, I'm still going to reference this book because it's where I got it. I think it's called how to Dress. Well, I'll put it in the notes these three words. I only dress myself with clothing that these three words describe. It's like my style brand for myself, because it feels like me and it changes over time and it's funky and it's fun, and so this is one way that I use style. 

22:22
Now Becca is going to talk to us all about style because she is the style queen. She is my stylist, she is my style consultant, my style coach, my beauty coach. I love her. I learned so much from her and she can put outfits together that I just cannot see. Yet she's going to teach me some more. She is an expert at combining vintage, new, different sort of style genres. She is incredible and creative with style. So using your style as a form of self-expression is the first of the three ways that you can practice self-loving on the outside, aside from the basics that we talked about. 

22:58
The second way is facial and skincare. There are some incredible techniques that you can practice for lymphatic drainage and for facial massage, including gua sha face, yoga, facial massage all different kinds of ways that you can take care of your skin on your face. That wakens up your skin and that creates a ritual event in the morning, in the evening. Even if you are a busy human being with lots to do or dependence to care for, this is something that you can do, even for one minute a day, if not five minutes a day. That lowers stress levels, helps complete stress cycles and is an incredible way to practice long-term self-love and to take care of that beautiful skin of yours, the largest organ on your body for the whole long rest of your life. So facial care and facial routines and what I like to call rituals are our second way. The first is style, the second is facial care and Becca, again, is an expert in these different ways of taking care of our skin. And then the last, the third way to practice self-love, and on the outside, is dietary choices that protect our microbiome. So gut health is something that tons of data has come out about over the last five, 10 years, and it's constantly renewing all of the resources to support whole foods, fermented foods, foods that support the microbiome, and we're going to learn more about why that's so important and how we can make small choices throughout the day that protect our gut health. So those are three ways style, facial care and gut health that you can practice self-loving on the outside and three ways that you can practice self-loving on the inside. 

24:47
By the time this episode comes out, actually, I will have posted the instructions for how to enroll in our full day workshop with Becca Salazar and myself on the art of self-loving, and now you have a little preview into all kinds of community conversations we're going to have. You're going to leave that day feeling nurtured. To leave that day feeling nurtured, feeling like a badass, having made new friends, feeling supported and connected to other women in your new community or in the current community that you have. This is in San Diego towards the end of February, beginning of March. All the details will be coming out at the end of this week. 

25:25
The art of self-loving. But if you can't join us on that day, I will have the materials accessible to the bloom room. So anyone that is a member of the bloom room will have all of that for free, and anybody else just reach out to me and become a member of the bloom room if you'd like access to those materials. And that is what I've got for you this week. Happy freaking Valentine's Day. Will you be mine? I hope so and I will see you next week. 

If you like what you're hearing on the podcast, you gotta come and join us in the Bloom Room. This is a year-round membership where we take all of these concepts and we apply them to real life in a community where we have each other's backs and we bring out the best in each other. We're all there to make our ideas real, one idea at a time. We'll see you in the bloom room.